While we have already seen some features of Google's upcoming Android L update back at the official preview, today we have a chance to check out an exclusive leaked video showing over eight minutes of Android L previewed on Samsung flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone.

Leaked by Sammobile.com, which claims that the upcoming Android OS will actually be called the Android Lollipop, the video shows an early stage of Android L development for the Galaxy S5. Although the preview is done on the Galaxy S5, which will have Samsung's own TouchWiz on top of the Android L, it is still nice to see how some native applications like Dialer, Clock, Messages and others are actually designed from scratch in line with Material Design, a Google way of calling the new look on the Android L.

While Sammobile.com initially wanted to release that same Android L LRW58J test build for the Samsung Galaxy S5 to the public, they decided, after two days of extensive use, that it is not suitable for every day use and is full of nasty bugs.

According to Sammobile.com, the new Android L uses the new ART runtime so in general it should be faster and more lag-free compared to the Android Kitkat, but since this build in its alpha stage it ends up slower than Galaxy S5 running on Kitkat OS.

Samsung has managed to sell more than 11 million units of its flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone.

The phone launched in April and the figure, revealed by the head of Samsung’s mobile business J.K. Shin, indicates that it is selling faster than its predecessor. The Galaxy S4 hit about 10 million units in the first month of sales.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Shin believes strong sales will help boost margins and Samsung’s smartphone market share.

"It's been a month since we began selling the S5, and out of the gate, sales are much stronger than the Galaxy S4," Shin is quoted as saying.

Although the S5 is selling well, not everything is going well in the house of Samsung. The company got a lot of flak for failing to include groundbreaking features in the S5 and it was criticised for its decision to keep using an all-plastic body. Just last week Chang Dong-hoon, the head of Samsung’s mobile design department, resigned. It is claimed that his resignation was prompted by the poor reception of the S5 design.

Samsung’s Galaxy S5 already makes up 0.7% of the every active Android smartphone in the world, just one week after release. Given that there is a huge number of Android devices on the market, this is quite impressive. To put it in some perspective Localytics notes that Apple managed to capture 1.1 per cent of the iOS market one week after the release of the iPhone 5s. But that market is a lot smaller and only includes Apple gear.

Samsung had to contend with a very strong competitor in the form of the very nice HTC One (M8) this quarter. Most of the Galaxy S5 sales were on Apple’s home ground of the United States which counted for 64 per cent of all Galaxy S5 sales last week. Europe brought in 23 per cent and everyone else took the remaining 13 per cent. The phone still hasn’t been released in many European countries so the Euro percentage will go up in the next few months.

All up, it looks like Apple is losing the smartphone war and unless it brings out a phone which is substantially different from Samsung it is going to suffer badly. Word on the street is that it is having trouble getting its super sized iPhone ready for market and what will be released later this year will just be a fairly bog standard iPhone with a slightly bigger screen (yawn).

Research firm IHS got hold of Samsung’s new flagship smartphone and took it apart to the last bolt to figure out how much it actually costs to build. According to the teardown, the Galaxy S5 has a bill of material (BOM) of $256.

Of course, this is not the full cost of the device, as it does not cover logistics, R&D, marketing and a range of other expenses that Samsung has to cover before the device makes it to retail.

Galaxy S5 BOM higher than usual

The $256 figure sounds a tad too high. Most flagship phones tend to have a BOM of about $200 or less. Most iPhones usually end up south of $200. For example, the iPhone 5S had a BOM of $191 when it launched last September, while the iPhone 5C had $173 worth of components inside its unapologetically plastic body.

Image: IHS

The Galaxy S5 retails for $699. Samsung does not have as much room to jack up margins as Apple does on the iPhone 5S, but it still has quite a bit more than many manufacturers. What’s more, Samsung’s BOM keeps going up. IHS found that the Galaxy S3 had a BOM of $205, while the S4 ended up at $233 (LTE version with Qualcomm 600 SoC). On top of that, a Galaxy S series phone costs upwards of $8 to assemble.

High-end smartphones are pricey, but at least it’s nice to see that Samsung’s consumers get a bit more value for money with each new generation.

Display remains the priciest component

Unsurprisingly Samsung’s 5-inch 1080p display is the most expensive component in the Galaxy S5. IHS puts its cost at $65. The cost of DRAM and NAND memory is around $33, but it’s unclear how much the Snapdragon 801 SoC costs. IHS puts the price of the Snapdragon 600 used in the S4 at $20, while the big Exynos 5 was estimated to cost $30. The Snapdragon 801 is probably closer to the Exynos in terms of overall cost.

“Inside we see mostly a lot of recycled components that we’ve seen before. There’s really nothing special inside where Samsung is pushing the envelope,” IHS analyst Andrew Rassweiler told Re/code. “There’s no breakthroughs, there’s nothing earth-shattering. It’s really just a continuation of what has come before.”

However, although there are no breakthroughs, the Galaxy S5 features a few new sensors, including a $4 fingerprint sensor and a biosensor from Maxium, with an estimated cost of $1.45. In addition to the new components which were not used in previous Galaxy S phones, the S5 also features a somewhat sturdier body, which also happens to be waterproof. This probably added a few more bucks to the BOM.

Samsung’s Galaxy S5 has finally gone on sale and it can be yours for €699, which is quite a lot of money for any phone. Of course, this is the retail price, different carriers will offer it at different prices on two-year contracts.

The price is not surprising. Over the last few years smartphone makers spearheaded by Apple have tried to increase the prices of the flagship phones and Samsung is no exception. At the same time the HTC One M8 is shipping for around €650 and is also available in most parts of Europe. Carphone Warehouse is selling the Samsung Galaxy S5 for £569.95, while UK-based customers can get this phone for £99 as long as they commit to a two-year £33 per month contract.

The SIM-free HTC One M8 is selling for £529.95 while the contract price is identical to Samsung Galaxy S5, it sets you back £33 a month as long as you are willing to pay £99 for a phone and ink a two-year deal with your carrier. The iPhone 5S is a tad cheaper as it comes with no upfront cost and £38 per month plan.

Samsung’s Galaxy S5 looks like a decent phone and we especially like the fact that it is waterproof. There is no doubt that this one will be yet another successful flagship phone for Samsung. The HTC One M8 will do better among people who like phones that look classier and offer a premium feel.

We have to admit that HTC’s brushed aluminium finish does look better than faux leather that Samsung uses for the Galaxy S5, but both phones are a great alternative to the iPhone 5S.

There have been quite a few rumors regarding the rest of the Samsung lineup based on the recently released Galaxy S5 flagship and for now, Samsung has only confirmed that we will see Mini and Zoom versions. The rumor mill was also talking about an Active version.

The Galaxy S5 Mini was leaked earlier by a case maker and today Sammobile managed to get their hands on some fresh rumors regarding the actual specifications. According to the report, the Samsung SM-G800, also known as the Galaxy S5 Mini, will feature a 4.5-inch 720p Super AMOLED screen and run on Snapdragon 400 chipset with quad-core CPU part.

The rest of the leaked specification also suggest that it will feature 1.5GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage expandable via microSD card slot, 8-megapixel rear main camera and 2-megapixel front one. It will also run on Android 4.4 KitKat OS, feature an IR blaster and have a 2100mAh battery.

Unfortunately, rumorville is still not sure if the Mini will be dust and water proof, which is something that people really appreciated on the recently launched Galaxy S5 flagship.

According to the first teardown of a Samsung Galaxy S5, Qualcomm will be the big winner on almost every phone sold. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 801 SoC will be used in the vast majority of Galaxy S5 phones, although a limited number is expected to ship with Samsung's Exynos parts.

In addition to the SoC, which is the most expensive semi component in the phone, Qualcomm also supplies power management chips, transceivers and the audio amp. Qualcomm is not alone, of course. Synaptics supplies the touch controler and touch IC, the NFC module comes from NXP, Maxim supplies the system PSoC and a biosenseor. A few smaller suppliers are behind the Galaxy's sensor array and other components.

Samsung produces the RAM and NAND flash, but some phones will feature Samsung processors, too.

Barclays analyst Blayne Curtis crunched a few numbers and concluded that even the smallest suppliers stand to make a killing on the Galaxy S5. For example NXP is expected to earn between $50 and $60 million on the NFC controller alone.

Qualcomm is the biggest winner, but it is a bit trickier to estimate how much it will earn, as the phone is expected to ship with Samsung processors too. However, Curtis expects Qualcomm will secure the "vast majority" of volume. The Samsung variant is expected to sport a 3G modem from Intel and an LTE solution from Samsung.

HTC is on the offensive. It thinks it has a better product than Samsung and it's not being very diplomatic about getting the word across. HTC America President Jason Mackenzie has now blasted Samsung, calling the Galaxy S5 a cheap, plastic device.

"If you want to buy a product built out of cheap plastic, there's a solution for you," he told Business Insider. "But we're going after a different customer, someone who wants the best."

It might be harsh, but it also happens to be true. HTC has a good reason to be frustrated. In most regards the old HTC One was better than the Galaxy S4 and the same is true of the new HTC One and the Galaxy S5.

However, having a better product is not enough. Samsung outsold HTC last time around, with a wide margin, and it all likelihood it will do the same this year. Samsung can simply afford to outspend HTC and invest a lot more cash in marketing. That point was also brought up by Mackenzie, who said HTC invests in its customers and delivers products they can be proud of, while Samsung is focused on investing in advertising.

In any case Samsung's approach appears to be working, but that is hardly surprising as the Korean giant is now outspending all competitors in terms of marketing, even Apple.

Lucid made it official that its software is inside the highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S5. This comes as great news for the company that is well known for GPU virtualization, but in recent years Lucid is going after the mobile market. Winning the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Note 10.1 was a great success for the company, but the Galaxy S5 is likely to be the best selling phone in the Android ecosystem and Lucidlogix will have a piece of the pie.

Lucid claims that it can increase the product power efficiency up to 35 percent extending the time before you need to recharge your phone and plug it in the wall again. Since battery life is a big issue for just about every smartphone out there, a 35 percent improvement is a big deal.

Lucid has announced that its GameXtend software is shipping inside around 10 million devices and of course with Galaxy S5 this number will increase rather quickly. Lucid claims that in popular 2D or 3D games it can increase the playing time as much as two to three hours, or up to 35 percent, which is a huge difference.

GameXtend is a piece of software integrated in Samsung’s ROM and it is basically a set of patent pending state-of-the-art algorithms designed to reduce power draw in real time to extend play time and reduce app interruptions. Part of the GameXtend magic is to mitigate other typical battery management functions, such as screen brightness and voltage utilization, which, as a result, keeps the device cool and comfortable.

We saw WebExtend and NavExtend demos at CES 2014 and Mobile World Congress 2014. We can only hope that these two pieces of software can make it into future devices such as Galaxy S5. Imagine being able to run your navigation up to 35 percent longer. If you ever used a phone-based satnav system, including Google Maps, you are aware how fast navigation can drain your battery. The GPS works all the time, the SoC has to process information and render everything in real time on a power hungry screen.

Driving in California and missing the Cupertino off-ramp when the navigation drains your battery quicker than ever is definitely not a funny experience for a European driver. This is why NavExtend and optimization of this power hungry task makes perfect sense.

It didn’t take long before European online shops started listing Samsung's Galaxy S5 phone and we this morning we found it listed for a rather steep €674 or more.

We are talking about the black version of the phone with 16GB of storage, much of which will be taken up by Samsung bloatware, but then again Samsung is smart enough to retain the microSD slot that will let you expand storage using a microSD card up to 128GB.

The phone comes with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 801 processor, at least it does in DACH market (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) and a few other European countries. Of course it supports LTE. Samsung obviously wants to chase Apple’s flagship iPhone 5S with its pricing. As Samsung already said, this phone should show up on April 11th in 150 countries and most of them will get this phones from carriers with subsided pricing too. From what we've seen, it won’t be cheap and it will match Apple’s iPhone 5S pricing. We don't have an official retail price at the moment, but it looks like it will be around the €600 mark.

Samsung claims that bloatware is a good thing but we would prefer an uninstall option for most of these apps, something that Samsung is not happy to offer. Hopefully there will be a Google Edition Galaxy S5 that will come without all that nonsense.